“I did,” she said, not bothering to hide her pleasure. She turned and beamed at Stan and Focus. “I heard Toby’s voice and I just had to tell someone. I’m so glad you guys are here, too. Great news, huh?”
She grabbed Focus by both hands and swung him around as if they were dancing-incidentally creating an opening for Toby. Focus stumbled a little, and his skin was so clammy that Stephanie had to resist an impulse to drop his hands as if they were a couple of dead fish. Clearly, he was already a bit “outta focus.”
Flabbergasted at the interruption, Stan had dropped the arm that held the amber capsule, cupping his hand around it protectively. Stephanie wouldn’t be surprised if Stan had already sampled its twin or something like it because he was clearly having trouble processing the changed situation.
On the other hand, it might be just because Stan wasn’t very smart. But he was very mean. As much fun as it was seeing them gawping, it was time she and Toby got out of this too-quiet corner and onto a more public street.
“My folks said I could fly us home,” Stephanie babbled, “and I’m going to get the air car from over at government central. Want to come with me?”
She made the invitation general, but wasn’t surprised to see the two older boys shake their heads. The last thing they’d want was to do was go over by government central-which housed the police-in their currently impaired condition.
“I’d love to,” Toby said. “Bye, fellows. See you in the sky.”
Toby and Stephanie hurried out of the small park with perhaps a little too much haste for good manners, but Stephanie wasn’t going to let the older boys reconsider letting them go.
Toby didn’t say anything until they were well clear of the other two. When he spoke, his voice was tight. “You must think I’m as much of a blackhole as those two.”
“No. I think you were in a bad spot, that’s all. I thought you were staying clear of them.”
“I was,” Toby said, “but my dad asked me to take a late delivery over to that boutique before it closed. The owner was just leaving, but she opened up, then made me wait. Focus’s dad owns the eatery next door. I think he and Stan do some cleaning up after hours. I guess he and Stan saw me coming in, because when I came out with the boutique owner, they called me over, saying they had some news about the club. I couldn’t say no without it seeming strange to Ms. Bond, then, well…”
“I get it,” Stephanie said, and she did.
“I was so glad when you came six-legging it around the corner,” Toby went on. “I owe you, big time.”
Stephanie grinned at him. “Hey, no problem. I mean, what are friends for?”
Climbs Quickly slipped out the window into the autumn night. The day following the big party had been very busy. Despite the activity of the day, Climbs Quickly found himself unable to settle in to sleep. Change was in the air-and not just because of the events in Death Fang’s Bane’s life. The seasons were stirring.
Stretching out his body in an easy, ground-covering lope, Climbs Quickly made his way a distance from the houses. When he came to a particularly stately golden-leaf that had become one of his favorite lookouts, he left the ground. Scampering high up along the trunk, he came out above most of the leafy canopy. Then Climbs Quickly spread his whiskers and let the wind fingers tickle his fur.
Closing his leaf-green eyes to slits, the treecat let ears and nose keep watch while he concentrated on more subtle, less easily read signs.
Yes. The weather was changing. Up here, away from where all the two-legs’ machines and enormous nests created interference, he could feel it more certainly. The winds were moving with purpose, yet the restless clouds they carried were not heavy with the rain the land craved, but thin and starved. There was a friction in the air, a prickly sensation that made his fur feel itchy.
Fire weather. Every treecat knew of it. It didn’t happen every season’s turning, nor every hand of turnings, but once felt it was not to be forgotten. When Climbs Quickly had been half his current age, such fire weather had come. Bolts of blue and white light had forked from the skies, too often striking trees like this very golden-leaf, trees that might seem to flourish but which felt brittle beneath the claws from lack of moisture.
His ears caught a swoosh of faint noise far closer than the uneasy crackle of the building storms. Hunkering close to the branch he had chosen for his perch, Climbs Quickly caught the shadow of a death-wing passing over him, two sets of claws spread to grasp at the exposed treecat, downy wings spread wide so that it might glide without making any more sound than absolutely necessary.
But Climbs Quickly was no adventurous kitten and he had chosen this watch stand well. A branch protected him from above, while not interfering too greatly with the wind currents he had sought to read. Even so, death-wings were too dangerous to taunt. He had confirmed what he had already suspected-his current uneasiness had only a little to do with Death Fang’s Bane and her rioting emotions, but was tied into something far more primal. He scampered down to safer levels, considering what he had learned.
The changing from summer into autumn always brought storms, as cooler air argued with warmer. However, this season those storms would not bring much moisture. Instead, they would bring destruction. Destruction the elders always told them was needed for the forests to be healthy, but destruction nonetheless.
Memories of fleeing masses of the People racing ahead of the hungry tongues of flame, of the mind-screams of those who could not run fast enough, of mothers who would not leave their kittens, these and more flooded into Climbs Quickly and made his heart beat fast.
Fire weather was coming and with it blazes that would make the one from which they had rescued Right-Striped and Left-Striped seem little more than the contained blaze the two-legs lit to warm their dens in winter.
Fire weather.
He ran back to where Death Fang’s Bane slept, wishing it were possible to run from knowledge as simply as one fled a death-wing.
Anders hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. He’d been in the bathroom hanging his robe on the hook behind the door when his father and Dr. Nez had come into the suite.
The two men were in the middle of a conversation that was one step away from being an argument. If either had even glanced at the bathroom door, they would have seen it was ajar and therefore assumed the bathroom wasn’t in use, that the suite was obviously empty.
If they had come in a few minutes before or a few minutes after, the suite would have been empty. That morning, Anders had not elected to go with the team to another of their interminable meetings. Instead, Anders had-with his dad’s enthusiastic encouragement-taken up an invitation from Stephanie to go with her and Karl on a hike. Jessica Pherris and Toby Mednick had joined them.
Jessica clearly liked the outdoors and seemed quite interested in the local plants. Toby’s reasons for joining them were a little more complex. After watching the dynamics, Anders was pretty sure Toby had a crush on Stephanie-or if not a proper crush, at least a major case of hero worship. The way he’d hovered near her, asking questions about everything from the ecology of the Copperwall Mountains to the handgun she wore in a businesslike holster, gave him away.
Amusingly, Stephanie seemed completely unaware of how Toby felt. For someone who could be so sophisticated when talking to adults, she was amazingly naive in other areas.
It had been a good day. Anders had come back to shower and change. He was then going to grab his reader, head down to the dining room, and, over a heavy snack, download some files Stephanie had sent him on the local ecology. One of these was an SFS ranger guide that wasn’t usually circulated. Another was an unpublished manuscript of her mother’s.
Stephanie had gotten permission to loan him both, she assured Anders, “But it might be better if you don’t pass them on to any of your dad’s staff without checking first.”